7 replies to this topic

[Aaron567]

Solenopsis geminata

 

Solenopsis geminata is a wide-ranging species that is found in its native range from North America through Central America to northern South America. It is introduced and invasive throughout the tropics outside of the Americas. In the United States, it was historically native to the southeastern US, including Florida, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and eastern Texas, but is now suspected to have gone extinct in most of this range due to the more competitive nature of Solenopsis invicta which began its invasion in the 1930s. Presently, native S. geminata populations still thrive in parts of eastern Texas and are sparsely distributed in rural parts of north and central Florida where invicta hasn't yet managed to stomp them out. These native US populations are much darker in color than the more well-known red variant that has spread throughout the worldwide tropics. The exotic red variant of geminata exists in Hawaii and portions of the Florida peninsula.

 

In this picture you can see that the queens of dark form geminata have a very similar color scheme to queens of S. invicta, but they have a much larger/bulkier head with very thick mandibles.

 

 

July 1, 2020

 

On this day I received two dark-form Solenopsis geminata queens from user 123LordOfAnts123, which were caught at a blacklight in a sandhill area in the Ocala National Forest of central Florida. They already had larvae that were in the prepupa stage.

 

 

 

July 5, 2020

 

Several pupae on this day.

 

 

 

July 12, 2020

 

Yesterday the first nanitics started hatching. Seeing them in person for the first time, they definitely look different from S. invicta in that they are darker and seem to be smaller. Their legs also might be longer, making them appear more similar to workers of Pheidole. Maybe it's just me.

 

We can see that the next batch of eggs is being laid. The queen is already getting busy.

 

 

 

Edited by Aaron567, June 11 2023 - 11:15 AM.

[Antkid12]

She looks so cool!

[TennesseeAnts]

Beautiful species!

[Aaron567]

August 31, 2020

 

It's been about a month and a half since getting first nanitics. I sold one colony, so now I have just the one remaining. It has somewhere around 80-100 workers now, and the first major pupa has just appeared. I did not think they'd be getting a major this large in such a short amount of time, but here we are. Prior to this, it looks like a single median worker hatched recently, but it basically looks like a minor, just around twice the size.

 

Oh yeah, and I moved them into a Tar Heel Ants Fortress. They've been taking plenty of Kentucky Bluegrass seeds and just about any insect I throw in there for them.

 

[Aaron567]

September 7, 2020

 

The first major is here! She is very large, as you can see. Her head matches the size of the queen's head. Because she is the first one, I assume even larger ones are to come.

 

The major didn't want to pose for a good picture for now, but I'll probably get some better ones later.

 

 

The proud queen.

 

[Aaron567]

September 27, 2020

 

Big pile of pupae & prepupae now, at least a couple hundred I'm guessing. There are also a few hundred developing larvae that are not in the picture. Looks like the Fortress will be filled completely in about 3-4 weeks, if even that. I do not have another formicarium prepared for them, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do; I guess you can say I probably wasn't prepared in advance to be keeping Solenopsis geminata.

 

 

 

One of the larger major workers cutting up a seed with the help of a couple minors.

 

[Aaron567]

January 18, 2021

 

It's been nearly 4 months since the last update, and the colony has at least a couple thousand workers, maybe 2-3k. I haven't done a count, so that is just an estimate. I think they'd have at least 5,000 by now if I'd been feeding them the proper amount. Their setup right now is a bit messy and all over the place, with the colony living in two different nests and having two outworlds, only one of which I actually put the food in. In the near future I plan to create a bigger setup for them that is more simple and can hold a larger colony. Unfortunately this colony isn't my top priority out of all my ants right now, because they're so hardy and I don't have to worry about them much. Another thing I should mention is that they kept escaping their large outworld (the outworld that comes with the Tar Heel Ants Phalanx formicarium) when I was trying to use fluon. Fluon doesn't really work on them. Apparently the gaps in the lid of the outworld are large enough for the workers to escape, but not on a huge scale. At one point I did have to suck up at least a hundred workers that had escaped. After switching to an alcohol/talc barrier, I have never had such problems; they are unable to cross it for weeks at a time.

 

Since the last update the colony has also created a couple of large major workers that are quite a bit larger than any of the ones in the previous photos in this journal. The degree of polymorphism that this species exhibits as a Solenopsis is amazing to say the least. It is still possible that they could get some even larger majors, because after all, I really haven't been feeding them much. These large majors are much more red in color than any of the other workers, and it makes them look a lot more like the red variant of S. geminata.

 

The first video below is a video focused specifically on one of the large majors, and the second video is just a video of the whole colony's setup from today. After that is a series of photos of the large majors, but the photos aren't the best because I was attempting to photograph them through acrylic. At least you can still see how impressive they are.

 

 

[TennesseeAnts]

Wow, that colony is amazing!